


Forbidden Fruit

by SLotH4



Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Fate/stay night - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26425948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLotH4/pseuds/SLotH4
Summary: How does a Hero of Justice save everyone when his only ally kills anything she touches?
Comments: 1
Kudos: 26





	Forbidden Fruit

Assassin sat in a chair with a flat and worn-down cushion, rips in the pleather exposing crumbling yellow foam. She stared at the young man on the hospital bed before her – only the beeping heart monitor and his light snoring to keep her company.

She shifted in her seat, tugging out a wrinkle in her shirt. Like a compulsive tic, she checked her wardrobe for the millionth time:

Long pants.

Long sleeves.

High collar.

Leather gloves.

Not a single piece of skin beyond her face was exposed. The rest of her toxic form encased in threaded armor of white and pastel.

An amber shawl twined her shoulders and covered her head like a hood – keeping deadly strands from being strewn hither, thither, and yon. For not the first time nor the last, she cursed her body.

Forever untouchable.

Forever unapproachable.

She glanced back at her Master. He looked so peaceful amongst the sensor pads and plastic tubes, a far cry from his agonized expression mere hours earlier. He fought so hard to protect people, but what did that mean when he could be felled so easily by a Servant.

Could the Grail grant his wish?

Could it grant hers?

Did it even matter?

She was an Assassin Servant. Bottom tier.

When was the last time an _Assassin_ won the Holy Grail War?

Melancholy colored her thoughts but she kept it locked inside – only ever expressing emotion when she wore her mask. Not the half-skull of the Hashshashin, but the one she wore during the hunt.

A fair maiden.

Approachable.

Desirable.

Poisoned sweetness that left others in a daze before her lips found theirs and they breathed their last.

She felt a tingle on her consciousness and glanced to the door. Looking past it and through wall after wall until she was outside the building itself.

There.

Another Servant was nearby.

Rising from her seat, Assassin looked upon her Master and bid him farewell as she left to confront them alone. Steeling herself as she dematerialized and made her way past the meandering hospital staff.

* * *

Assassin stared into her cup of coffee, watching the swirling branches of steam that rose from the bottomless darkness of the brew. She frowned almost imperceptibly. The people of this land knew not the splendor of this drink when brewed in the ancient Levant.

“Can you explain why you asked me to come?” Rin Tohsaka asked from across the table, her body tense and her expression confused, “We’re not allies. You understand why this is so weird, right? To get a phone call from a Servant?”

“I do. And I apologize.” Assassin took a sip of her cup and grimaced – so bland. “I didn’t know who to turn to, Master Tohsaka.”

“So you came to me? An enemy Master?”

“My Master has few around him who understand him. Fewer still who are aware of his magic.”

“Yeah, but I barely know him. He’s just a weird kid at my school I don’t talk to. Honestly, taking him to see that fake priest was the most I’ve ever interacted with him.”

“I understand, but I feel inadequate to the task. My Master is… I don’t know,” Assassin said, straightening her back to look Tohsaka in the eyes – indigo meeting aqua, “Is this frustration I feel? I’ve never had a contractor who was so incapable of utilizing my skills.”

Tohsaka cocked an eyebrow. “Is this about his hero complex?”

“Yes. He wants to save people. He wants to save everyone. And yet… he summoned _me_. I can’t help him achieve such a thing. I can’t serve him properly, and I don’t know what to do.”

Tohsaka frowned and looked her up and down. “Does he know you’re here with me?”

Assassin hesitated. “My Master is… indisposed at the moment, I’m afraid. I doubt he would object though. You are an enemy Master, but I do not believe you are a threat to my Master, not truly. Not like the Einzbern girl. You are like him, a good person at heart. You’re simply not blinded by ideology.”

Tohsaka’s eye twitched. “I’m not sure how I feel having an _Assassin_ Servant tell me I’m not a threat. But I suppose there is some truth in the broad message. I’m not a psychopath, even if I am willing to kill to win this war.”

“Yes. You are pragmatic in a way he is not. If he were, I’d feel more… useful. I’m not meant to fight Servants; I’m meant to kill their Masters. But he wants to save everyone. Even those who would harm him.”

“Yeah, there’s something very wrong with that boy. No sense of self-preservation.” Tohsaka sighed. “So what happened? We’re near the hospital, so I can only assume he tried fighting a Servant with a tree branch, or something dumb like that.”

“Not… exactly.”

“Then what?”

Assassin hesitated. Tohsaka was a rival Master. Would it be proper to reveal her noble phantasm to an enemy outside of using it? She could feel the burning blue eyes of her forebear upon her soul. The answer was a resounding ‘no.’ She could easily lie, as she so often did in her line of work – seducing and murdering as required. And yet…

She sighed and tugged off one of her gloves before reaching out and grasping the decorative flower on the table between them. Its petals shriveled and fell to the table.

Tohsaka tensed but didn’t react beyond that – not even sliding her chair back. Assassin could sense the girl’s Archer Servant hovering nearby, but she still appreciated Tohsaka’s professionalism. Certainly better than her Master’s reaction the first time she explained her… condition. He’d actually reached out and squeezed her shoulder and told her – in his endearing puppy dog way – that it would be okay.

That was the first time she’d killed him.

“My body is poison.”

“The whole thing?”

“Yes. It was the way I fulfilled my contracts when I was mortal,” she said, absentmindedly rolling the shriveled stem between her fingers, “A poisonous kiss from a beautiful girl is as effective as any dagger.”

Assassin dropped the black stem and lifted her cup, swirling it slightly and watching the liquid spin in its wax-lined paper prison. An ugly, unpleasant thing trapped in a hollow shell it had no right to fill.

“Is that why you’re dressed like that?” asked Tohsaka with a lift of her chin.

“Yes. I do not wish to kill needlessly. My Master would disapprove if I did, but it is a troublesome thing at times.”

Assassin glanced out the window at the passersby. How many would die if she walked amongst them? She felt nothing at the idea of death, but the thought of disappointing her Master? When she was already a failure as a Servant?

Unfathomable.

“I have a wish. Most heroic spirits do, I believe. I wish for a Master who can touch me without worry. Who can embrace me as easily as others,” she said, the sad smile on her face souring slightly, “The Grail torments me with my Master. My body kills all, even him… and yet, he doesn’t die.”

“What do you mean?”

“This isn’t the first time this has happened, Master Tohsaka. A simple touch and the poison seeps into his blood and dissolves his organs like sugar in qahwa.” She looked past the people and cars to the hospital across the street. “Despite this, he always comes back to me.”

Tohsaka gaped at her. “How the hell does he survive something like that?!”

“I don’t know,” she said, shrinking back slightly, “Every time it happens, I feel his mana disappear and I’m on my own. I feel neither his warmth nor his mind. He just ends… and then he returns. I wish I understood.”

 _“Master?”_ came a man’s ethereal voice.

Tohsaka glanced up to the ceiling. “What is it, Archer?”

 _“I’m not sure the boy has any true resistance to the poison,”_ the sneer obvious upon his invisible lips, _“That said, there are magical objects that can heal or sustain someone, even against such toxicity.”_

“I have not seen any object of that nature in his possession, though I am not a Caster Servant, so perhaps I simply lack the aptitude.”

“Knowing Emiya – little as I do – I doubt he even knows what it is.” Tohsaka sipped her tea. “But it is a problem. Even if he weren’t such a doofus when it comes to the war, he should at least realize you’re not to be touched.”

Assassin’s smile was small and shy. “I don’t believe my Master thinks things through when someone is in need. He simply acts. He is… sweet, despite his clumsiness.”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Assassin. If Emiya had a shred of common sense, I’d suggest you kill yourself and take him out of the war before he dies.” Tohsaka’s eyes narrowed. “But we both know the stubborn oaf would just try to save people on his own without you.”

The pair – trio? – fell to silence, content to sip their drinks. Assassin finished her coffee and rose from the chair, offering a bow and quiet ‘thank you’ before excusing herself – tossing the cup into the blue bin as she walked out of the café.

* * *

Assassin made her way along the sidewalk before entering the hospital through a back entrance. Despite the slight daze she felt, she still took a circuitous route to avoid being followed. She still didn’t know what to do with herself. Was Tohsaka right? Should she kill herself to protect him? Even knowing that Shirou would fight on without her protection, limited as it was?

Her stomach churned and she was tempted to blame it on the swill these people blasphemously referred to as ‘coffee.’

She reached his door and walked inside. The heart rate monitor beeping reassuringly near the bed. She sat back down in the uncomfortable seat. Her back ramrod straight despite the fatigue that seeped into her bones. She watched her Master. The gentle rise and fall of his chest under the coarse blanket.

What was she to him? And could she, in good conscience, continue to serve him? She was not a good woman, she understood this in the abstract. She was an assassin during her life and created a legend of death so powerful she could be summoned as a heroic spirit. She could witness or commit murder, torture, or even genocide without batting an eye. And yet, deep down, she was just a girl who wanted to be more than an untouchable reaper.

She looked over her unconscious Master and smiled. He was someone worth fighting for. Someone worth caring for. But what good were such feelings when he was just as vulnerable to her as everyone else?

She silently cursed the Grail once more for bringing her into this world only to torture her with this man. She did not love him… not yet. But every day he persisted alongside her, it became harder to ignore. She felt her heart break every time she looked into his eyes after he touched her. Watching the life flee them before it returned a minute later, much reduced.

_I wish I knew what to do._

Her shoulders fell by millimeters as she watched over him. The simple task doing little to distract from thoughts as poisonous as her flesh.

_Maybe Tohsaka was right._

Shirou Emiya stirred in the bed and opened his eyes. The amber orbs slightly glassy and confused as he looked around. When they fell on her, he smiled as if he had not a care in the world. “Hey, Assassin. What happened?”

She scooted her chair closer and spoke in a hushed tone as she pressed a button to adjust the angle of the bed, “You’re in the bimaristan, Master. One of Caster’s familiars knocked me down and you tried to catch me.”

“Oh,” he said, glancing about, “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

She smiled at the question and felt a familiar warmth in her belly. He was so concerned with everyone else, even her. “The sudden dearth of mana was unpleasant, but I was able to keep you safe until it returned. I wasn’t seriously injured in the escape.”

“That’s good.” He nodded and slid back into the bed with a smile. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Assassin furrowed her brow. “Master, we’ve discussed this before. You cannot save me. I understand it is your desire, but it only puts you at greater risk.”

Shirou shook his head. “Who would I be if I were so selfish that I couldn’t help a friend in need?”

“Even when it kills you? Again and again?”

Shirou grimaced, no doubt remembering the agony of her touch. “Yes… even then.”

“Master, you cannot save anyone while you recover from my touch. You cannot save anyone if you are _dead_. Even if you somehow resist my poison, you are vulnerable to the blade. I know not how you survive me, but I doubt you can heal a severed head.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I think… I think it might be best if you _didn’t_ save me. If you would just let me protect you with my life. Without a Servant… even one as worthless as I… you could survive the Holy Grail War. The other Masters would have no reason to come after you.”

Shirou’s eyes narrowed and for the first time outside of battle, he seemed genuinely angry. “Don’t ever call yourself ‘worthless,’ Assassin. There’s no one I’d rather fight this thing with than you.”

There it was again, that gentle warmth in her core. “Master…”

She couldn’t form the words she wanted to, the room falling into silence, broken only by the steadily beeping machine.

Shirou looked away, thoughtful. “I know it isn’t logical. I know it isn’t pragmatic. I know sometimes it’s downright counterintuitive.” He turned back to her. His amber eyes warm and happy. “But this is me at my core. I cannot be anyone other than Shirou Emiya. I will be true to my nature, same as you. If that leaves me vulnerable to death then so be it. If I can save even one person, it was worth it.”

Assassin closed her eyes, unable to look into his. This foolish, beautiful boy was going to do what he felt was right no matter what.

She wished she had his strength.

“I’ll save everyone I can, Assassin. Even you.”

She heard him shift on the bed but made no move to open her eyes. To have someone care for her so deeply when all she did was cause pain. She wanted to cry.

_Oh, Master. I don’t deserve yo—_

Assassin’s eyes shot open and looked down.

Only to see a hand on her hand.

Her _exposed_ hand.

_By Allah, how could I forget to put the glove back on?!_

She cursed her inattentiveness as she pulled her arm back, already feeling the cold absence of her Master’s mana. She turned her gaze to him and saw only his clouded eyes and foamy lips. The erratic heart monitor echoing in the tiny room as nurses and doctors rushed in to help.

Were she any other woman, she’d have screamed into the ether and torn out her hair.

Instead, for the first time in ages, she felt tears roll down her cheeks and she wept at this all-too-familiar scene.

What was she supposed to do?

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, this was a crackfic idea with Shirou constantly trying to save her only to end up poisoned and dead… only to come back and die again later (like Lancer in Carnival Phantasm), much to Assassin’s chagrin. The problem, of course, is that Hassan of Serenity is not Rin Tohsaka. She is not a frustrated tsundere. So it loses most of the humor of the original idea. Oh well.
> 
> This was inspired by my friend Pallan Minerva’s fic “The Saga of Shirou’s Summons.” It’s a fantastic series of oneshots that explore Shirou’s relationship with different Servants he could have summoned.


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